Ep 45: Pandemic Trends in the Outdoors, with Scott Roush
Scott Roush is the Deputy Regional Manager of the Northeast Region of Colorado Parks & Wildlife. In this episode, we discussed the pandemic’s effect on the outdoor industry. While Scott’s facts and figures were specific to Colorado, many of the overall trends were not. We covered the increase in outdoor recreation during the lockdown, issues faced by the state due to concentrated numbers of users, trends in fishing vs. hunting license sales, the new requirement for access to state wildlife areas, proposed permitting systems to alleviate pressure on sensitive areas, and more.
CPW Website: Colorado Parks and Wildlife
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 45 with Scott Roush on pandemic trends in the outdoors. Do you just want to start by giving me kind of a quick intro about how you got your start in the outdoors and got connected with CPW?
Scott
Sure, yeah. So I've been with CPW now for, oh gosh, it's been 27 years. So I started right out of college and did some bighorn sheep research actually up in the around the Tarryall Mountains and over in the Cottonwood Pass area over in that area and got on full time and was actually hired with Colorado State Parks. So worked through the park system to where I am now as the Deputy Regional Manager for the Northeast region. So I've worked mostly here along the Front Range. I'm a native of Colorado so I spent a lot of time in the outdoors and everything but it's one of those things as a kid you look at and you kind of know what you want to do and you go to school and that's what you do. So I don't know it's always the case, but for me, that's what it was. And I've enjoyed every minute of it.
Katie
So what is the, like, what are the responsibilities of the deputy regional manager?
Scott
So the deputy regional manager of the Northeast region, we oversee all the parks here in the Northeast region. There's 15 parks, then all the wildlife areas, there's five wildlife areas and all those properties. So it's kind of, it's based out of Denver. And we do, and I also in charge of the trails, trails management in the Northeast region. So there's two deputy regional managers, then we're underneath the regional manager here in the Northeast region.
Katie
Okay. And I assume that's different from... So that's basically all state land stuff. So some of the more local parks and things wouldn't be included in that?
Scott
Correct. It's all Colorado Parks and Wildlife property that would be underneath us.
Katie
Okay. And so what are the other, I guess, departments almost? Like if you're mostly parks and trails and things, who deals with the wildlife? I guess what are the different divisions within CPW like that?
Scott
Well, we basically have two divisions within Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and that's our state parks and then our wildlife areas. And obviously, we're responsible for overseeing all the wildlife in the state too, so in management of that.
Katie
Okay. So yeah, we can kind of hop right in. Mostly what I wanted to talk to you about today is the trends you've seen since the pandemic started, because I feel like this is something that a lot of people noticed just in their own personal lives, like anecdotally. But I haven't gotten to talk to anybody yet who might actually have data or statistics that kind of back those things up. So maybe we could just start with an overview, a 30,000-foot view of if there were any very distinct trends or patterns that you've noticed since the pandemic started.
Scott
I think the biggest trend that we noticed is just the amount of people that were outdoors. It's just people were home. People were looking for things to do and getting outside. And if we look at our state parks, we're overrun with visitation after the pandemic started. And in the beginning, we didn't know how this was gonna be. We didn't know what we were looking at, and how would it affect us, and how would it affect our license sales and what we saw. But the trends we saw, a lot of people, they wanted to get outside. They needed that break, which is great. And that's why we all live in Colorado anyway, that's to get outside and do things. And we were able to provide that. I think, you know, overall, that's really what we saw. We saw a real increase in fishing license sales, people getting out and wanting to go out and do something different, you know. And a lot of those new licenses, those are new users. So when we look at that and it's a trend we saw of people coming to the parks and just using trails, people getting into the wildlife areas, people getting out to go to fishing, you know, they were new users and people are using, you know, out in the lakes and stuff and buying, you know, kayaks and stand-up paddle boarding was a big trend this year. I think I saw a statistic it was up 300% for inflatable stand-up paddle boards. And we saw it. We saw it in all of our areas. There's a lot of users.
Katie
Yeah, that's kind of what I noticed too. Just my own personal experience, even things like more people out walking their dog or just going for a walk in the sunshine to get out. separate from actually hunting, fishing, skiing, things like that. People just wanted to be outside more. So, yeah, that kind of makes sense, that you're saying there were more licensed sales. Did you see a breakdown between hunting, fishing, and just park visitation? I would assume that more people probably would pick up fishing for the first time, just because it's maybe a lower barrier to entry. But did you notice a difference between some of the activities?
Scott
Yeah, we did. And fishing was a big one that we saw. And if you look at fishing overall, you know, if you look at all the types of fishing license that we sell, we sold 200,000 more licenses in those categories. If you look at just annual licenses alone, which when you really look at annual, new annual license, that's probably your newer users and stuff. And that was over a hundred thousand just annual fishing licenses. So, I mean, that's where we really saw the big increase and then with fishing and then people, you know, a lot of those personally, I spent a lot of time up in the mountains and I'm a big fisherman myself and I went to Tarryall Reservoir and I spent a lot of time there over the years and when I went there with my family and took them out, it was so crowded it was hard to find a spot on the shoreline, you know, just to find a place to try to fish and then I actually had my belly boat and when you went out on the water, it's like there was all the other users that you had. You're a fisherman, you're trying to use it, but then you have the kayakers, you have the paddleboarders, you just added on top of that. It was a weekend. I know myself, being in this business, that weekends are busy. It was the busiest that I've ever seen it when I went out there that day. That was the middle of the summer. There was a lot of people.
Katie
Yeah, for sure. Normally, taking a belly boat somewhere isolates you. You get away from the crowd. Even if there are crowds on shore, it's usually not too hard to get away from them in the mountains if you take your own boat. I can imagine, especially with things like kayaking and other kind of more recreational uses of water. People just, you know, you can only go so many places to get on the water. You need water. So, it kind of squeezes people into the same area maybe, who would normally be more spread out. And how about hunting? Did you notice an increase in hunting as well, just not as big?
Scott
There was increases in hunting in like our license sales. We were, you know, we were really wondering what that would do. And just through the application process, there was about 60,000 additional applications this year over last year for big game hunting. So there was an increase there, but I don't think you saw as big of increase. And I, and I was looking at some of the stats there and it looked like even when we looked at the over-the-counter licenses this year, they seem to be a little bit down with people coming and buying, because I think it's that, it's kind of that, that unknown, you know, and, and the licensing, you know, they were related a little bit to, to the COVID and stuff, but, you know, license sales and stuff and, and refunds were more related more to the fires. Which, you know, with COVID and fires on top, it didn't do well for some of those places, but still we didn't have that many licenses turned in. You know, we had some refunds and I think we processed about 13,000 refunds for licenses this year. And on a normal year, you'd probably do about 5,000, five to 6,000. So, but you know, a lot of those, I think there was like 1500 or so of those were related to COVID. And then there actually was more related to fires.
Katie
Yeah, I would expect maybe, and this is just an assumption on my part, I would expect in-state resident hunters to not maybe be as affected by COVID since hunting is an outdoor activity that's kind of inherently isolated from everything else. But I could see the out-of-staters maybe wanting to turn those tags back in and not spend the money to come out here, especially with the dangers of traveling and things like that. So I wonder if that contributed to it at all.
Scott
Yeah, and we did see that. And there was a higher increase in non-resident turning in licenses for those reasons. And there was travel restrictions and the unknowns and what people were going to do and that kind of thing too.
Katie
Now, is this the first year that you've done the refund system or has that always been a thing and I just didn't hear about it until everything blew up at once?
Scott
No, they've done refunds in the past and there's reasons why we would do refunds and everything. And this year with COVID and everything, they were actually doing refunds and reinstating people's preference points and that kind of stuff too. So they were trying to make it as least impactful to people if it did actually impact with the COVID and fires also. So they were able to help out with doing that.
Katie
Okay. Yeah. I wonder also if, you know, I don't know if you have the stats on this, but I could see another kind of difference between the hunting and fishing licenses just being that there might be people who are taking hunter education this year, but maybe couldn't find a class. I assume that, you know, those probably filled up as well since that's a first step, especially if there's a lot of first-time users, whereas a fishing license doesn't really require much other than a trip down to the store and you can walk out that day with your license.
Scott
Yeah, yeah, that is true. And the one thing we did in our higher education was effective this year, and we actually put it online. So we did have online courses that people were able to do, which we didn't have in the past. And that was an effect of, you know, just having the COVID and not being able to gather and everything. And, you know, there's good and bad in that we were able to get people their their hunter education cards so they could so they could apply for licenses in the springtime which was a big issue when it first started you know because people had classes um so we were able to get to them licenses but you lose that effect and and having a you know a qualified uh hunter education instructor being able especially at the youth is where I really see it you know getting them out and having them handle a gun and actually take them out on that half day where they get to shoot the 22s and you know making sure they're safe and understanding it's different when you can do hands-on with with online you know we're all calls and everything now, so it's a little bit different. But it is one thing that was a shift that we had to make and that's still in place right now until we could get those programs back up and going.
Katie
Now is that still expected to kind of go back to normal once this is all over? Will you be going back to requiring a hands-on session as well?
Scott
I think it's something that's still being considered. I would think that they would have those and I really look at for our youth hunters and stuff like that. I think it's important when they're getting started and we have some really good mentors out there and you know having those youth come in and having that hands-on is really important I think.
Katie
Now with the state parks and things specifically I assume that you also have events there that are you know in person and in groups did you have to make changes there or are most of the events and things held at the parks kind of an open-air experience and weren't too affected?
Scott
We the parks just saw a huge increase in people and we you know once in a while and your major holidays and stuff, our parks may have went to capacity when people haven't, we'd have to manage capacity in doing that. They were when this, after it started and everything, and people really started getting outdoors and the governor wanted people to stay home, but it was encouraging to get outdoors, which is good. We stayed open through the whole thing, but I mean, we saw 30, 40% to visitation increase at most of the parks, especially along the front range, where we were actually reaching capacity levels during the middle of the week. And we were running capacity on a daily basis for a while. and people really coming out. We actually had to start shutting down some of the parking areas and doing things just so we can meet the protocols of, what CDPHE was putting out and how we were doing things and making sure we didn't have too many people just on the parks. 'Cause we were starting to get large crowds at swim beaches and stuff like that. And we kind of had to start controlling that a little bit.
Katie
Oh, sure.
Scott
To be able to control those crowds. Our visitation this year is way up and that's throughout the state at state parks. So it really increased, which it's good. People are able to get out, we want to make sure that people are being safe also.
Katie
Yeah, one thing that came to mind kind of right in the middle of it, and I'm not expecting you to make any sort of statement on, you know, what was the right call to make or not the right call to make around like statewide mandates or anything, but I was kind of shocked to hear there was at one point that the mandate was that you should stay within 10 miles of home, but recreate outside safely. And I was just thinking that that's just going to cause everyone to pack into the same parks all within the front range. I know you mentioned that, especially in the front range, the visitation was up, But that's all I could think about when we were being encouraged to stay within 10 miles of home And I was like well every park in Denver that is gonna be You know packed to the brim with people because that's the only place they can go
Scott
Yeah And it was and there's no doubt about that and I agree with that and you know And it was a lot of you know, different counties were looking at differently It's like, you know We don't we don't we don't want people right now and I can totally understand where they were coming from and what their guidelines and what Each County was different and that was some of the things that we ran into and so they did and they came out they came out in Denver and they were at their local parks. And with the majority of the population right here in Denver, the metro area, the Chatfield, the Cherry Creeks, and the Boyd Lakes along the Front Range, even Pueblo down in the south, they all got hit by a lot with a lot of people and a lot of visitation.
Katie
One thing I wanted to kind of suss out, both in park visitation and license sales, is I feel like it might have been a bit of a double-edged sword, just in that a lot of revenue comes in from license sales, and I assume parks passes as well, but then you to look at the negative effects of having too many people in the same place doing the same thing. Did you see any sort of positive or negative impacts from more people recreating outside, especially kind of all in the same place?
Scott
We did. What you really noticed, and in this talking with other folks with the counties and stuff and along the northern Front Range here, I'm part of the NOCO Places 2050, which is a group that's kind of a Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest in Larimer County and Gilpin County and Clear Creek County and Boulder County, you're really looking at trails and the effects you had on trails. You had so many people going to trailheads and so many people on the trails that it's just widened out the trails. And we saw that in our parks too. You know, just so many people. And then you're saying, okay, we gotta stay six feet apart and people would pass. You just kind of keep widening out those trails. And we really saw an impact on those and how that affected parking lots. And just with parks and our operations, You know, people coming there, we were trying to meet all the CDPHE guidelines of, you know, making sure restaurants are clean and everything. Well, those are all operating costs that increase too when you're cleaning them on a regular basis and you're going round and round with restrooms and just areas and trash and all that kind of stuff. So, there's positives in terms of for us, revenue collection, we did see an increase in that. But, you know, on the operations side, we have it on the same, you know, we are spending more money there too. And especially we had to hire more temporary people to help out with, you know, just the crowds that we had and trying to do capacity and trying to maintain what we had.
Katie
Yeah, I feel like it's hard to balance this. On one hand, it's always considered a positive thing to get more people into the outdoors, especially hunting and fishing, specifically because of the revenue that's brought in with the licenses. But then you also hear about, especially now, more people getting outdoors all year long, backcountry skiing, backcountry hunting, things like that, and the effects of more people being out there at times that they didn't used to be out there too, like middle of winter and way farther off trail than they normally would be. So I feel like it must be hard to kind of balance, you know, what's a good amount of recruiting new people into the outdoors and creating people who care about the outdoors, but also having those people potentially have impacts that they wouldn't have had in the past.
Scott
Yeah, no, yeah, I totally agree with that. And we really, and some of the stuff we've talked about is like carrying capacities and what we do within people and how they use areas and how do we how do we maintain what we already have with their trail systems with the use of the forest and things like that and you know I've heard from other hunters a hunter up north that turkey hunts and you know he went out and you know place he usually trick counts in the morning and he was going to run it's pretty close to town but it's a place he's always gone but he went out there and there's people there already the whole day you know it just it wasn't an area that for him to hunt it it wasn't feasible for him to do that anymore just because of the other the uses that were on there. So, you know, we saw we saw things like that. And all the people that you go or hunters that do they went up to go camping and they get to their spot where they usually would set up camp or whatever, and there would be a camper there, but they weren't hunted related. They were just people camping because they could. And I think we saw that shift with people and how they were doing things. And just more and more, the more people we have start occupying the places closer to the front range, that's going to push more and more people farther into the backcountry, which you're talking about, and you're going to see more and more people that you went on that hunt to be isolated, and that's where I go. And all of a sudden, like, wait, now I'm all seeing all these people. And they're not hunters, you know, they may be doing something different. They may just be out hiking, and you know, or just going out backpacking and camping, which they didn't normally do during those timeframes only hunted, and that kind of thing. So those are some changes and shifts that I think we're seeing.
Katie
That kind of makes me think of something else that I'm not sure if you'll know, but is there any sort of management or group that kind of handles the interactions between different use groups? Because I'm sure that you probably get complaints from people, especially in like the Hunter surveys and stuff, saying like, "Yo, there's just hikers everywhere now or bikers or whatever." But those people have just as much right to be out there as anybody else. And I know it's not really anyone's job to fix people's conflicts for them, but is there any sort of need to kind of mediate conflicts between different user groups that all kind of feel entitled to the same resources?
Scott
Yeah, and you know, I think those come up and they're really land specific in terms of what land they're on, and where, you know, whether it's forest service, whether it's a CPW property or state wildlife areas. We have it there in our state wildlife areas where paddle boarding and fishing and what is a state wildlife area really supposed to be used for is, you know, it's fishing and hunting. That's where the funds to, you know, to acquire those lands came from. And then you have people that wanna do other recreation there, so there's a conflict. So we, as an agency of CPW, We actually do a lot of that on our lands and the same thing with the Forest Service. There's also organizations that's starting, there's a regional partnership program that's being started and they're looking at how that would work. And it's really looking at these groups of coming together, how you manage, what I would say across the border. So you have groups coming in, you might have like a NOCO places where we have everybody in different agencies together and looking at how you manage those lands as a whole. and when we do planning and trails and connectivities and really looking at, well, how do we respect the corridors for wildlife? It's one agency saying, we're gonna put trails here and then we're trying to protect it on another side, but combining those all together and maybe looking at a little holistic approach to it. And that doesn't always go after the conflicts and stuff, but it's kind of up to each agency and how we do things. And a lot of them come down for us in terms of it's a wildlife conflict and stuff that we're gonna respond to and try to help with.
Katie
Now, you brought up the state wildlife areas. Am I correct in thinking that there was a change made this year where you either have to have a hunting fishing license or buy like a duck stamp or something to access those areas?
Scott
Yeah, it was put in this place in this year in the state wildlife areas. And it was, you know, it was related to the use that was there and what was being done. And you do have to have a hunting fishing license or a hunting license or a fishing license to be able to be on those areas. And, you know, it's really looking at what other recreation was out there. the first year for it and they're still kind of, they're really still looking at that and studying it and see how that looks. And I think there'll be some, some changes coming. There may be like a, a use pass that they're looking at that, you know, there's a lot of people that they don't want to buy a hunting fish or a fishing license, but they want to use the area where that's a bird watcher or something like that. So they may look at another pass, but, um, and those, those are all affected on federal dollars on our, with the wildlife side about, you know, what money we get when we sell license and doing, and then that supports the upkeep of those properties.
Katie
Yeah, have you, and again I'm asking you a lot of things I'm not sure if you'll know or not, but I at least got a survey recently in my email mostly about the 285 corridor and the fact that that gets so busy, especially in the fall around Kenosha Pass area, and asking if I'd be willing to like pay a permit to park or you know get a permit for certain trails or things like that just because it's getting so crowded. Is that something that's kind of been in the works for for a lot of areas, maybe having more people pay to come in there just so it's generating revenue but also kind of lowering the number of people at any given time just to help the area?
Scott
Yeah, and I'm not familiar with the 285 survey that was sent out, but there's other places that we've looked at. And it really comes back to, you know, what is that capacity? And we look at some of our state parks in terms of like even El Dorado Springs, El Dorado Canyon State Park, and looking at how we have too many people going there and going through to a town and what we're going to do there. And we started shuttle systems to bring people in. We're looking at maybe a reservation system coming in there. And there's different things that really have to be looked at. And I think what COVID did was it gave us that look, it jumped us about 10 years about what we, what our visitation is going to be looking like. And it's something that we have to really look at and study to see what are our options? What do we need to do? And this isn't just, this is parks, this is trailheads, this is every place that people are going because they're just overrun. The counties are dealing with this. Jeffco and Boulder and you know it was a busy time for all them when you have you know the whole trailhead is full and you have people parked down the roads and then it's causing safety issues and then how do we get emergency vehicles in you know and things like that so it's it's all across the board right now.
Katie
So do you happen to know if there's been more of a positive or negative response to that because I know when I got that survey as much as I don't like the idea of having to reserve a spot I I think I voted favorably on most of those things saying yeah, I'd be willing to reserve a day or two in advance if it means that when I get there, I'm not surrounded by a thousand other people and the area can stay pristine and maybe not find bags of dog poop every 10 feet, you know. And so I could see maybe other people feeling that way, but then another group maybe being like, you know, I don't know when I'm going to get a day off. My schedule is kind of up in the air. I don't want to have to choose between being able to go outside but having to reserve and not know if I can actually do it or having to just stay inside. Do you know if there's been a positive or negative response to that?
Scott
I think there's both it's just about what you said right there I mean, there's people that are totally in favor of it and they're more than willing to yes if I can reserve that and I Can be guaranteed I can go up there and have a parking space. I'm willing to do that Then there's the other people on the other side. It's like well, I shouldn't have to do that. These are public lands I should have access. I shouldn't have to to pay to go there, you know, you can understand both sides of it It's a matter of how do you control it and what you can do? or there's just too many people. And it's really looking at all the options and looking at public, if you look at like Rocky Mountain National Park this year with their timed entry and stuff, I've talked with some of those folks on that. And there's a lot of people, once they got in, they were really happy about it. Did it accomplish what they needed? It did accomplish what they needed about kind of controlling people. They found some things that people still use the real popular areas and they still had issues of overuse in those areas during the, when they were trying to limit things. But it's hard to do. And really what you see is a lot of the local population really wants the access to it. The people that have to travel, they want to be guaranteed to be able to be there, is what you see a lot.
Katie
Yeah, that sounds pretty understandable. I could see me viewing a reservation system as not being a big deal when it's 20 minutes from my house. But having to reserve something that's hours away from me, I might not be sure what time or what day I'm going to get there and potentially have a trip ruined because I wasn't through on whatever time I had planned to go or something like that. So I could see that being an issue. When it comes to like the state wildlife areas, I know you said that now you need a hunting or fishing license to get on there and some people aren't super on board with that. That's a little bit different than needing a reservation system because it sounds like you can basically buy the license and you're good for the year, but some people might not be comfortable supporting hunting or fishing if that's not, you know, especially if it's not one of their values but also if that's not what they're using it for, they might want to contribute to what they are using it for. Do you know if there's any planned systems for, you know, you can buy a bird watching permit or a, you know, whatever the case may be, a hiking permit or anything like that?
Scott
Yeah, they are looking at, they're currently looking at that and coming up with whether they'd have just a state wildlife access pass, and which would, you know, would be in that same type of fee area, it's like if you bought a license, and really related around that of what they're looking at. And that's stuff that our Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is working with right now. We have a group of AWMs that are looking at that and other folks that are involved trying to put that together. And it'll be another piece of that that was put together. And right now with our state wildlife areas, we're really doing a lot of education about that right now. Just really letting people know that this is here and why it's there. And I think that that piece, most people you explain to and they're like, "Oh, okay." And a lot of people don't know. They just come and say, "Well, this is just open land because we go to open space, we go to parks, we do things. What's the difference?" And there is a difference. And I think that's the education piece needs to be there also.
Katie
Speaking of education, have you guys had to make any sort of changes in terms of with so many more users out there providing that education? Because I know you said a lot of them are first-time users and I could see them being a little lost when they go out not really sure where to begin, especially with hunting or fishing that's maybe a little bit more complicated to get into than just starting hiking or camping or something like that. Do you have any plans or have you already started any sort of education programs to get first-timers into the outdoors?
Scott
It's something that's really been talked a lot about. There are programs that are being put together for the first time, whether that is -- it's really going back even to the manufacturers and being able to provide information when people buy things. That's the start. Then going to the website, planning a trip where I need to go, and the hunt planner that we have for hunting, like you say, you gotta be looking at that a bit more, but the camping and the fishing is like, I can go to the store, buy gear, and I'm off and going. We also saw that with paddle sports this year, which was way up, and people going out and paddle sporting, not really, no one won. We had, unfortunately this year was one of our highest years with fatalities on the water. Some of that has contributed to those new users and going out and not really understanding that a standup paddleboard is actually a vessel and you are required to have your life jacket and whistle and follow the rules that are there. And it just seems like you get on the water. And I think the other side of that, we saw a lot of people just using the areas that the swimming pools were closed. So here we have lakes, we can go out to the lakes and it's different. If they haven't been there and if they haven't gone out to a lake, it's not the same swimming, it's not the same thing. A lot of them don't allow swimming, but people may not know that they get out there. we've had some, you know, instances this year that didn't turn out so well. So, yeah, there's still a lot of education. I think there's a lot more to do on that first-time user and we're really seeing that now.
Katie
For sure. I don't know if this is data that CPW can even collect, but is there a way to tell how many people who bought hunting and fishing licenses this year actually used them? Or how many, in the case of like annual fishing licenses, how many days they were used? Because I could imagine there were a lot of people who, you know, especially for hunting, if your license months in advance might be hopeful about getting out and then they don't actually come around to it. So I don't know if there's any sort of like error known between license sales and actual users that made it outside?
Scott
There is in terms of especially with hunting licenses, because they do a lot of surveys, the after hunt surveys, and then they'll send out survey notices to through email addresses because everything's connected through email and then calling people and doing I've done I went hunting this year and I've had three different surveys that called me to do my survey whether you know did you get out did you harvest what did you do how many days those exact type of data on the fishing side I don't I don't know that we have those right now I'm not sure if there's a survey going on the fishing side I did not one come into mind so which would be interesting
Katie
I gotta say those surveys are either really nice to get a really depressing depending on how your season when I think I got three this year and I was just filling them all out like nope, nope, nope, nope.
Scott
Mine were pretty depressing. I was on that side. But I gave it a try, and I gave my daughters a lot with me, so we all gave it a try. That counts for a lot, just to get out.
Katie
That's good. Yeah, I almost wish they'd send out a fishing survey just so I could be like, "Oh, you know what? Yeah, I did have a pretty good year, all things considered."
Scott
Yeah. You've got to look for the positive, that's for sure.
Katie
Now, in general, has Colorado been seeing -- I'm sure, based on what I've heard, this But have license sales been increasing in general over the past couple of years, separate from COVID?
Scott
The last couple of years, yeah, license sales have gone up slightly in terms of where we were at, yeah. So, you know, that increase, especially looking at like more on the big game side, where we'd have those license sales that increased over the last couple of years.
Katie
Okay, and is that, do you know if that's attributed to just more people coming to the state or kind of the increase in popularity of some of these outdoor sports maybe a combination of the two?
Scott
I think it's a combination. What we've really saw is an increase in bow hunting and people looking at bow hunting and doing things on that side and trying to get a start, you know, and looking at that. And that's where we've seen that increase that I've heard about, so.
Katie
Yeah, I've talked to some people personally who expressed an interest for the first time this year in picking up hunting. And most of those, I would say, are more interested in bow hunting than rifle hunting, even though they've never hunted before. And I could, you know, as someone who grew up rifle hunting, it was definitely hard to transition to bow hunting from that. So I'm always impressed with the people who can go straight into bow hunting without kind of passing through that intermediate phase first.
Scott
Well, I agree, doing both myself, that's the same thing. And I can tell you I'm much more successful with a rifle than I am with a bow.
(both laughing)
Katie
I think that's probably the case across the board unless people are only hunting with a bow and therefore kind of limiting themselves to that.
Scott
True.
Katie
Kind of on a more positive note, just to kind of wrap things up, the last thing I wanted to talk about was just like license sales in general and the revenue they generate. Do you happen to know like what percentage of the revenue that the state generates for wildlife conservation, habitat restoration, things like that, come from license sales versus maybe like excise taxes on equipment and things like that? How much of a difference do license sales directly make?
Scott
License sales are, I mean, they're huge. That's what funds our agency. They're a major portion of the revenue that we bring in to do that for all of our hunting sales that we have. I don't have the exact numbers about what percentages we're aware of. The licensed sales are the major part of what keeps the wildlife side of our agency funded.
Katie
And what are some of the other things that contribute to it apart from license sales?
Scott
They have federal dollars that come in through the Dingell-Johnson Act and then there's the, oh I'm forgetting the other one right now.
Katie
Pittman-Robertson I think.
Scott
Yeah the Pittman-Robertson, thank you, yes. Both of those come in and those are matching dollars for license sales also. So that with the license sales are a major part of where they come from.
Katie
So the federal government just automatically matches whatever you make in license sales?
Scott
There's a certain percentage that they match on license sales.
Katie
How does this money then get divvied up if you happen to know like how do they decide? You know We got this much is it fishing fishing licenses go toward fishing projects and honey licenses go toward wildlife Or is it a little bit more complicated than that decides where the money goes?
Scott
It's it's much more complicated than that And that comes in and it's through the whole budget and everything about where it's at It's really funding the whole agency and because you have a lot of things on the backside you have biologists You have the hunting programs, you know, you have the state wildlife areas There's a lot of factors that come in there. You have the aquatics and where that money goes. Now, the federal money goes directly to those two pots. That's where it would fund it. Your fishing licenses and your Dingell-Johnson is funding the fishing, and then the hunting license and the Pitman-Robertson, they're doing the wildlife side.
Katie
Okay. That makes sense. Just to finish up here, I know you mentioned earlier that you like getting up in the mountains and fishing. Any specific species you like targeting, or styles you like participating in?
Scott
Well I like to get out and fly fish and I used to do a lot more and I started to get back into it and I like to get my daughter into it and my whole family actually fishes and loves to fish and that we do a lot of we do a lot of fly and bubble on the lakes and then I get the fly rod out whenever I get a chance on the rivers that's for sure.
Katie
Nice. That's funny you mentioned that that you're trying to kind of get back into fly fishing because I grew up with a spin rod and since have switched mostly to fly fishing, but I almost kind of want to get back into the spin rod a little bit, just because around here, like, I'm in Lakewood, so we've got, you know, lakes near here that have walleye and stuff in them, and I feel like I'm missing out on a big chunk of the fishing opportunities down here if I'm limiting myself to a fly rod. So I've thought about kind of branching out and getting back into spin fishing a little bit, or maybe try ice fishing for the first time.
Scott
Yeah, no, I agree. I was able to actually get out to East last year and did some catfishing with my daughter. We caught some nice catfish, and that was a lot of fun. You know, they're definitely a good eating fish.
Katie
Yeah, are you down here at some of these local lakes around here?
Scott
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm actually in the Lakewood area myself too. So I jump around down in that area also.
Katie
Awesome. Well, Scott, I'll let you get on with your evening because I know you're probably coming toward the end of your workday here, but is there anywhere that people should reach out if they have any questions or maybe are thinking about getting into hunting or fishing for the first time and want to just get some more information?
Scott
Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, I think the best place to go is to our website. Just Colorado, you can just Google Colorado Parks and Wildlife and it'll take you to that website. We just have a lot of information on there. There's a lot of contact information on there. And then, you know, if you're local areas and things like that, you can reach out to the region offices and then reach out actually right to the district wildlife managers if you're looking for that type of stuff too. So yeah, the website has got all the information on there.
Katie
All right, perfect. Well, Scott, I really appreciate you taking the time and hopefully you'll find some time soon to get outside and enjoy this nice weather we've been having.
Scott
All right, thanks Katie, I appreciate it.
Katie
All right guys, thanks for listening. Remember to head over to the website fishuntamed.com for all episodes, show notes, blog posts, everything else. If you've got a minute or two, leave a rating or review on iTunes, and if you're looking for me on social media you can find me @fishuntamed on Instagram or under my name Katie Burgert on Go Wild. And that's all for this week, but I'll be here in two weeks and I'll see you guys then. Bye everybody!
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